My new MacBook Pro 15″ is a thing of beauty. But not everything is as I expected. Here are some notes on the transition, from my first few hours with it:

In the past, when moving from one Mac laptop to another, I’ve just connected the old to the new via Firewire, and the new one pulls over all your old data and settings. It’s like moving into a new house except everything is exactly where you left it. This time, something went very wrong. While the new one recognized that there was another Mac plugged in to it, it timed out in the transfer after just a percentage or two were done. Worse, it behaved the same way whether I connected via Firewire or ethernet (with two different ethernet cables and multiple restarts). It eventually restored from Time Machine, but even then there was a glitch: It said “About one minute remaining” for about two hours. However, once it was done, my new laptop has just about everything I wanted from the old one.

I saved an image of my Windows partition onto my Mac partition via the free WinClone app (thanks for the pointer, Max!), and it restored it back easily, although it complained that the 32GB partition I’d made wasn’t big enough … even though that was the size of the partition on my old Mac.

I’m enjoying the multi-touch; I’d already been using the two-finger scrolling, but four-fingered task switching is a natural.

I had to look up on the Internets what the F5 and F6 keys do: They adjust the backlight under the keyboard.

Note to self: After installing XP in a Boot Camp partition, don’t forget to boot into XP and insert the OS X disk so that it can load all those delectable drivers.

The gorgeous screen is so large I don’t think it will ever be simultaneously clean in every spot.

With the aluminum unibody, I’m not worrying so much about holding it by the left front, which in the plastic MacBook is where the hard drive is. The aluminum also heats up real good, which will be a comfort during those long Boston winters. (Possible new tag line: “MacBook Pro 15: For Men who Have Moved Beyond Sperm Counts.”)

A small disappointment: The model I have has two graphics cards, but you have to log out in order to make the switch. A larger potential disappointment: With a fully charged battery and not too much running (but wi-fi on), I’m only getting about 4.25 hours of battery life. It promised more. But we’ll see. I haven’t tried minimizing all the power draws.

I recently switched from a black Macbook to the new 15″ unibody Macbook Pro and, so long as I switch to the “better battery life” GPU I get as many as 7 full hours of battery life under normal working conditions. I’m extremely pleased with the performance of the integrated battery.

Further, if I turn off bluetooth (since I only use my mouse when I’m at my desk) and dim the screen slightly, I get as many as 9 hours of battery life for my work (which is typically email, IM, and some light programming).